The God of Second Chances
Can you believe 2023 is already here? It is amazing how quickly time flies! Time has a way of getting away from us and many of the things we had planned and hoped become things we wished we would have done. This is true with our relationship with God. We may have started the year with such hope and enthusiasm only to find our resolutions broken and forsaken by the end of January.
You’ve messed up, admit it! I know I have. We’ve done and said things we wish we could take back. We have let opportunity after opportunity pass us by. “I’ll take care of that tomorrow,” we have said. We all have been like Felix in Acts 24 and waited for when we find it “convenient,” but never gotten the chance again.
Our stories are the same when it comes to procrastination, but the specifics are very individual. Some of us know we needed to have given our lives to Christ, but we never did. Some of us needed to repent of a specific sin that has given us trouble, but we have put it off. Others of us wanted a closer relationship with God, but never got around to it. There may be those among us who needed to make right a wrong done to another, initiate reconciliation in a relationship, or let go a grudge and forgive. These and many others are all things we should have done, but haven’t.
That’s why new years are so good when they come around. They are opportunities for us to try again. I know it is arbitrary. You’ll be the same person January 1 that you were on December 31, but you don’t have to be. Any time is a good time to start over again!
Do you really think God would allow me to start over when I have messed up so many times? Yes, I do. He is the God of Second Chances. Do you remember the story of Jonah? Jonah had been given a command by God to preach repentance to the Ninevites, but he deliberately disobeyed, “But Jonah ran away from the LORD and headed for Tarshish” (Jonah 1:2-3).
God caught him and brought him back (it’s a whale of a story). God was angry and disappointed, but notice how chapter three begins,
Jonah 3:1-2 Then the word of the LORD came to Jonah a second time: 2 “Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you.”.
The word of the Lord came a second time! Jonah was given another chance and so are we.
I’ll say more in my lesson! Joey
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